Researchers have lauded the development of a new targeted chemotherapy treatment as a significant cancer breakthrough, for it has proven effective at eliminating solid tumours in preclinical research.
The groundbreaking pill has been developed by scientists at the City of Hope Hospital, one of America’s largest cancer research and treatment centres.
The new pill, containing a molecule codenamed AOH1996, targets a protein present in most cancers that instructs tumours to reproduce and spread throughout the body.
This protein, called the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), was previously thought to be “undruggable,” yet the pill has proven effective when tested on 70 different cancers including breast, prostate, brain, ovarian, cervical, skin, and lung cancers.
Aerial view of City of Hope campus in Duarte, California as of 2021.
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In preclinical research, the treatment has reportedly suppressed cancerous tumour growth without damaging health cells in the body.
The result of 20 years of research and development, the new treatment is named after Anna Olivia Healey (AOH), a young girl born in 1996 who lost her battle with cancer at the age of 9.
A senior author on the study, Linda Malkas, Ph.D., professor in City of Hope’s Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics and the M.T. & B.A. Ahmadinia Professor in Molecular Oncology, likened the treatment to a snowstorm.
Malkas said: “PCNA is like a major airline terminal hub containing multiple plane gates.
"Data suggests PCNA is uniquely altered in cancer cells, and this fact allowed us to design a drug that targeted only the form of PCNA in cancer cells.
Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope, located at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, United States.
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“Our cancer-killing pill is like a snowstorm that closes a key airline hub, shutting down all flights in and out only in planes carrying cancer cells.”
She added: “Results have been promising. AOH1996 can suppress tumour growth as a monotherapy or combination treatment in cell and animal models without resulting in toxicity.
“The investigational chemotherapeutic is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial in humans at City of Hope.”
CANCER IN FOCUS:
The investigational is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial in humans.
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The study announced that the treatment "inhibited tumour growth in animals without causing any discernible toxicity even at 6 times its effective dose."
The lead author of the study was Long Gu, Ph.D, an associate research professor in the Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics at Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope.
Long Gu said: “No one has ever targeted PCNA as a therapeutic because it was viewed as ‘undruggable,’ but clearly City of Hope was able to develop an investigational medicine for a challenging protein target.
“We discovered that PCNA is one of the potential causes of increased nucleic acid replication errors in cancer cells.
“Now that we know the problem area and can inhibit it, we will dig deeper to understand the process to develop more personalised, targeted cancer medicines.”
The study was published in Cell Chemical Biology on 1 August.
A PDF version of the study is available here.
